


Irdak

by Temve



Series: Irdakverse [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clones, Irdak - Freeform, M/M, The Force Ships It, Zabraks (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:42:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26720836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temve/pseuds/Temve
Summary: When a mysterious stranger washes up in the Jedi Temple infirmary, Master Kenobi’s life takes a left turn.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Other(s), Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Irdakverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974295
Comments: 33
Kudos: 63





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tornado_fox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornado_fox/gifts).



> Inspired by tornado_fox’s piece of art included in Chapter 1 (here is her [Tumblr](https://ins0mnia-dreams.tumblr.com/) and [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/ins0mnia/posts)). I wandered off in a completely different direction and she graciously followed, as is evident from the amazing art she gave me for Chapter 5, and now a piece of cover art as well!
> 
> Also, this is impossible to tag for reasons that will become apparent in Chapter 1, but let's just say this is not Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan AND Obi-Wan/Other as in two separate pairings...
> 
> Infinite thanks to Ell for pointing the comma cannon at my scribblings, as well as for valuable insights into the mind of a mad scientist. Love you!

Obi-Wan had a bad feeling about this.

The call to the Temple Healer’s Ward was not an uncommon occurrence as such, even one coming from Healer Vokara Che herself rather than a member of the nursing staff or, for minor cases of Initiate cooties or Padawan growing pains, one of the droids… but in this case, Obi-Wan was quite certain that Anakin was safely tucked away in his advanced engineering class. And there was nothing that would separate the boy from Tinkering for Masters as he was fond of calling it.

Obi-Wan gingerly probed the other end of the training bond he shared with his precocious teenage apprentice, and received nothing but the gentle thrum of a mind at work solving complex engineering problems. 

Definitely not a case of ‘what have you done to yourself _now_ , Padawan?’, then.

Nevertheless, something in the back of Obi-Wan’s mind had him on high alert - so much so that he had a hard time not outpacing the reception droid who dutifully picked him up from the visitor area and led him down an increasingly unsettling set of corridors.

“Excuse me, is this... the isolation ward?”

“Affirmative,” the droid replied evenly. “We will reach our destination shortly”.

Shortly, as it turned out to be, was literally five seconds later, as a door to their right slid open and the droid ushered him into a small antechamber where Healer Che appeared to be genuinely happy to see him.

Master Mace Windu, on the other hand, completely failed to make the situation any less disconcerting. _Looming_ was the first word that sprang to Obi-Wan’s mind. 

“Master Kenobi! Good to see you. Thank you for coming so quickly.” 

The relief was obvious in Vokara Che’s voice, as if something had indeed deeply unsettled the otherwise unruffled Healer. 

Then again, being in a room with Mace Windu for any length of time could do that to you.

“Obi-Wan.” The handshake from the older Master was crushing, and contained more than a hint of pull, as if Obi-Wan was to be forcefully guided towards something he didn’t want to see.

But what? Anakin’s presence in the Force continued to be distant and blithely busy. Who else would they call him of all people to the Healers’ Ward for? Quinlan? Quinlan was offworld for all he knew, had been for many months, and besides, Obi-Wan hardly qualified as ‘next of Quin’.

“Masters.” Obi-Wan sketched a bow to Healer Che at least. “To what do I owe the… pleasure I suppose? Who’s gotten themselves damaged this time?” The attempt at levity fell flat as Obi-Wan nervously glanced from Windu’s immovable frown to Che’s datapad and back.

“That is a very good question,” Healer Che replied evenly. “The answer is, we do not currently know.”

She stepped aside and gestured to the window of the isolation bay that adjoined the small room they were standing in. 

“Our community medics received a call late last night from one of the less savory sections of the Sublevels,” she explained. “By the time they got there, the caller was gone and all they were left with was this one.” 

She gestured at the tall humanoid form currently laid out on the stretcher, apparently unconscious. “The Force collar is a standard safety precaution but something tells me it was a good idea. At first reading, his midichlorian count is certainly high enough.” A warning hand on Obi-Wan’s arm made him realize how close to the window he’d already gotten. 

“We thought you would be able to… confirm our suspicions.” Mace’s voice, darkly.

Obi-Wan’s mind reeled, and if he hadn’t already assumed his ingrained defence-against-Mace-Windu stance, hands tucked into opposite sleeves, there was no telling what he would have done. Quite possibly Force-push himself through the window.

The patient in the isolation bay shone brightly in the Force, an echo of something rooted, buried so deeply in Obi-Wan that he had to close his eyes for a moment, if only to tune out the jarring visual.

A young humanoid male, tall and perfectly still. Hooked up to various IVs and brain-scan electrodes, and obviously battered, with fresh bruises on his face and traces of blood still marring his hair and eyebrows where the medics had not managed to clean it away. One forearm was in a splint.

That was not what was jarring at all. Obi-Wan had seen enough damaged bodies in his life to be even remotely fazed by the man’s injuries. He would live, and he wouldn’t even be disfigured. That was not the problem.

The problem, from where Obi-Wan was standing, was that the man _was_ already disfigured. In the most disturbingly, devastatingly beautiful way.

“This… can’t be.” 

“That is why we called you in, Kenobi.” Mace Windu’s voice was harsh. “Now would be a good time to spill anything you might know about, you know, wild oats. Illegitimate offspring. That kind of thing. Vokara estimates he’s about twenty standard years of age so you would already have been around.” 

Obi-Wan shook his head slowly, unable, unwilling to comprehend.

Mace lowered his voice. “Personally, I wouldn’t have thought Jinn’s tastes leaned towards _Zabraks_.”

Zabrak. Like putting a finger on a barely-scabbed-over wound.

And yet here they were, the tell-tale horns dotting the young man’s forehead, a crown of smooth ivory-colored spikes disappearing into a jagged hairline. There was no telling if they continued underneath what appeared to be a mane of untidy braids that had turned into felted dreadlocks, tarnished blue and copper ornaments still tangled in the brown mass. The horns, where they were visible, had clearly been injured at their roots, the blood trails still perceptible across the man’s still face. His skin was an inhumanly opaque ivory color, and the fact that the med crew had removed what clothing he must have arrived in only served to heighten his evident Zabrak lineage.

One side of his body, from neck to ankle, was covered in a delicate web of tattoos. Shapes that reminded Obi-Wan of circuit boards and engine parts and stylized electronic vines, accentuating the elegant length of his thighs and the smooth muscles under that strangely pale skin. The color of the tattoo was fascinating too, shading from darkest brown to a soft rosewood color as if to add dimension to the flatly uniform skin tone it sat on.

On his chest, a symmetrical pattern had been begun but never finished, leaving a blank space where, on a human, the heart would be ( _was he Zabrak enough to have two_ , Obi-Wan wondered absently).

His face, mercifully, remained devoid of tattoos, a step removed from the face that still haunted Obi-Wan’s nightmares in unguarded moments. _Regal_ was a word that a lesser observer would probably come up with, purely on account of the prominent brow, large nose, and expressive mouth that rested silently as if about to speak.

To Obi-Wan, the silence was deafening. Because he knew what that voice, when it awoke, would sound like. Would _have to_ sound like.

_He looks so young, so beautiful despite the damage, and yet so unmistakably Jinn._ Obi-Wan did not need a genetic scan to determine that those eyes, when they opened, would be the rudest and most brilliant of blues.

“We don’t know that, Master Windu,” Healer Che interrupted. “While our detail scans are still computing as we speak, the overall DNA pattern suggests a splicing of genetic material that is far more targeted than the random mix of two sources that you would expect to get from… sexual reproduction.”

Mace’s head whipped around, and Obi-Wan didn’t know whether to be relieved that Mace had obviously been jumping to conclusions, or disgusted at the conclusions he had evidently jumped to. “What you’re suggesting is that this is not Qui-Gon Jinn’s bastard offspring?”

Healer Che sighed. “If you insist on putting it that way... I concur.” 

Windu spat out a hearty curse. “That means there’s someone out there merrily splicing Jedi DNA.”

Obi-Wan was barely listening, his ears rushing with the sensory input of this impossibility of a man, there behind the glass. He was barely able to muster the required indignation to rebuke Master Windu for denigrating the reputation of his deceased fellow Master - _his_ deceased beloved.

And all the while, the silent horned young man lay there, naked, breathing, healing, gathering strength to become a storm in Obi-Wan’s life, once he opened those eyes.

Once he opened those eyes, Obi-Wan was honestly not sure there was a force strong enough in the universe to keep him from meeting them. And drowning in them.

“I think it may have been a mistake to bring Master Kenobi into this.” Healer Che placed a gentle hand on Obi-Wan’s back, and the jolt back to reality was almost strong enough to give Obi-Wan whiplash. And, in all likelihood, confine him to a separate room in the Healers’ Ward, which was the last thing Obi-Wan wanted right now.

“Apologies, Healer. Councillor.” He cleared his throat. “What were you expecting my assistance with?”

Windu had the dignity to squirm a little. 

“Well, given the genetic information that our Master Healer just shared, we may have inconvenienced you for no reason. Apologies, Master Kenobi. You may go.” 

Taking his own cue, the Councillor stalked out of the antechamber without another word.

The soft pressure of Healer Che’s hand on Obi-Wan’s back deepened a little, small pulses of Force-enhanced massage underpinning her apology for putting him through the trauma of being asked to examine what was essentially a cross-breed between Qui-Gon and the creature that had killed him. 

“You must be devastated.”

In truth, Obi-Wan did not know what to think, his mind buffeted this way and that by the memories, the unconscious man’s raw Force aura despite the collar, and the fact that he could not make up his mind whether to want to destroy or devour this fantastical creature. 

_Wreck,_ he thought. _Describes us both, doesn’t it?_


	2. Approach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincere apologies for the fourth-wall-breaking tendencies of my characters. "ZSL" was not a thing until today, and Healer Che's nicknames for her patients are frankly unconscionable in the Star Wars universe, but what can you do? :)

Healer Che’s professionalism be damned.

There was no way she was letting Obi-Wan back into the orbit of her mysterious patient, especially not now that he had apparently regained consciousness. Nor was she breaching patient/healer confidentiality by allowing Master Kenobi access to the mysterious arrival’s medical information.

She did, however, upon threat of a slow and painful death followed by the promise of fine dining at said Master Kenobi’s expense, compile a brief report every day to keep him apprised of the developments, in barren scientific language designed to soothe and spectacularly failing to do so.

She had begun with the arm injury, of course. Probably because that had turned out to be a fairly clean fracture of both bones in the man’s forearm, which would be returned to full functionality within days given the medical resources available.

Frankly, the young Zabrak’s arm was the last thing Obi-Wan cared about, for all that it terminated in a hand that seemed a tad too big until you considered whose hand it was… bred from? Built? Obi-Wan was at a loss for the correct verb. Not an uncommon occurrence where Qui-Gon’s hands were concerned, but not one that had derailed his thoughts with any regularity in recent years.

The genetic composition, at least, had been confirmed according to Healer Che’s suspicions rather than Master Windu’s: there was indeed a majority component of Qui-Gon Jinn, embedded in a matrix of _multiple_ Zabraks.

The frown on Obi-Wan’s face upon reading this must have been so thunderous it caught the attention of his Padawan, currently involved in his favorite activity of turning scraps from the various recycling systems operating at the Temple into cybernetic monsters of his own creation.

“Master?”

“Yes?”

“You’re projecting.”

“Apologies, Padawan.” Obi-Wan tried in vain not to lift his gaze off the datapad, but the quizzical look on Anakin’s face blinked brightly in the Force, enough to remind him that there were others that he had sworn to pay attention to every now and then. _Sworn to Qui-Gon’s last breath, no less_.

“Something bothering you, Master?”

“You could say that… I appear to have encountered a genetic conundrum.”

A soft snort from Anakin, already fully focused on his latest project again. “Tell me about it. Knight Elloth _loves_ those. Unfortunately, she seems to think everyone in her Advanced Humanoid Biology class does too.” A tiny grunt directed at a piece of tech refusing to move. “Spoiler alert: we don’t.”

“Perhaps you can solve this one for me then.” It was worth a shot. “A humanoid individual is made up of DNA from one distinct human ancestor, plus several other humanoids, apparently all of the same generation. A generation different from the human ancestor’s.”

“Impossible.” Anakin’s judgment was swift and deadly. “Well, by known reproductive methods anyway. Unless someone was going to the trouble of mixing the genes by hand. Which is waaaay more trouble than you want in a pute-fly and not really achievable in a full-on humanoid. Not in a humanoid lifetime anyway.”

Obi-Wan’s frown darkened. “So we appear to have an impossible being on our hands then.”

“Wait… you’ve got an actual _person_ with that make-up?” Anakin’s interest was now definitely piqued. “You said it was a conundrum.”

“I fear he may be.” Obi-Wan sighed. “Or possibly an error on the Healers’ part. One father, multiple mothers. A puzzle with spikes.”

Anakin’s finger had shot out and pointed at Obi-Wan’s chest before his mouth had caught up. “I _knew_ it! You were withholding critical information, Master! _Now_ it’s easy.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan felt as if the Zabrak’s spikes had attached themselves to _his_ forehead, pointed inward and determined to give him a headache with several mothers.

“Spikes, Master. The Four Mothers. Basic genetics lab work. Hells, _I’ve_ probably had my fingers in their descendants. And then had to sit through the lecture on the questionable origin of those notorious strains.”

“I fail to follow, Padawan. Who are these mothers you speak of?”

“Oh… sorry ‘bout that. Anyway, you can look them up on the databank. Kinda famous strain of Zabrak cell cultures that are notorious for being really long-lived and hardy. So much so that they trust the Padawans with them.” Another soft snort. “I think the story was that they were harvested from four different enslaved Dathomiri Zabrak females… who are now the grandmothers of a million scientific discoveries and stuff.” He waved a hand dismissively, as if biology was too messy a science for him to really get excited about. 

Obi-Wan felt like a trapdoor had opened up under him. Infinite, dizzying possibilities. None of which he was ready to share with Anakin at this point. Time to wrap the conversation up as inconspicuously as possible.

“So... what is this thing you’re building anyway?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” 

Score. There was a hint of pride in the boy’s smile and more than a hint of steel in his eyes. It said, clearly, _I’ve been at this longer than you, Master. Leave it to me,_ and for once, Obi-Wan was inclined to let it slide, extracting only a perfunctory promise to not cause trouble with the upper echelons of the Order, or the City for that matter, _again_. 

He had research to do.

A few databank articles later, he found Anakin’s theory confirmed. Apparently, Zabraks were known for the longevity of their cell cultures and thus a species prized by geneticists, resulting in several strains of stem cells known as “the Four Mothers” which had more or less fed into every humanoid biology breakthrough over the last four decades… as well as an unknown number of half-Zabrak offspring of assorted frustrated geneticists with no time or charm to go about it the… purely biological way.

They were also known, among at least some of those geneticists, for providing an excellent midichlorian substrate. 

_Guaranteed Force-sensitive offspring. Of course._

A day later, a few terse sentences from the Healers’ Ward informed Obi-Wan that while the effects of the concussion were receding in the expected manner, the young man’s long-term memory appeared to have been either systematically excised or blocked; according to Healer Che’s communique, he was able to function perfectly well but had no recollection or idea of who he was or where he had come from.

Consequently, she had nicknamed him “Jinn Doe”.

If Obi-Wan was ever allowed in the Healers’ Ward in her presence again, she would pay dearly for that. For now, though, her daily reports were all he had.

 _Jinn Doe_. The thought of even a sliver, even a _percentage_ of Qui-Gon Jinn returning to his life was intoxicating and terrifying, a maelstrom of conflicting emotions rolled into one neat package of ivory-colored skin and inscribed with tattoos that heightened all that was beautiful about Qui-Gon while echoing all that was terrifying about his absence, and the Zabrak who had caused it.

The void in Obi-Wan’s heart had a crown of horns. And this… stranger was silently trying to force himself into it.

***

“Absolutely not.”

That was the upshot of the entire carefully prepared speech about compassion, talent retention, and the fact that even if the strange stray had as little as a third of Master Jinn’s midichlorian count, he would easily qualify for a position in one of the Temple’s adjunct organizations that formed a welcoming haven for failed Padawans and doubting Knights.

Mace Windu had spoken, and the tone of his voice brooked no argument. The weight of the Jedi Council hung heavy in that handful of syllables, and Obi-Wan had little doubt that even if they hadn’t discussed this particular case in detail yet, their verdict would match Master Windu’s only too closely.

“Obi-Wan. I understand why you are concerned for him. However, I will caution you to not let that cloud your judgment. A young man with no evident memory of who he is or where he came from, popping up conveniently near the Jedi Temple, the spitting image of a young Qui-Gon Jinn except for the horns on his forehead? I don’t know what that sets off in _you_ , Kenobi, but for us, that rings alarm bells.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if the headache that had been plaguing Obi-Wan was contagious. “If whoever created him considers him worth anything, they’ll come for him. And I’d rather that did not happen _in_ the Temple.”

“What do you propose, then?” Obi-Wan recognized the mix of defiance and defeat in his own voice. Had leveled it at his own Master often enough.

“Once his injuries have healed, which Healer Che informs me should be by tomorrow morning, we will release him to where he came from.”

“He doesn’t _know_ where he came from!” Obi-Wan interjected heatedly. “Are you proposing sending him back to the Sublevels?”

“We are proposing,” Mace replied coolly, “returning him to the hands of the City. We will equip him with appropriate paperwork documenting his amnesia and physical status, and City Social Services will take care of the rest. With no clear provenance, he will not face any risk of deportation either. Not a bad start for an able-bodied young man if you ask me.”

“Keeping him close but not… close?” Obi-Wan’s face twitched, eager to betray how disgusted he was with the callousness of this proposal.

“Not under surveillance, if that is what you mean, Obi-Wan. Where would we find the resources for that? We will, naturally, inform our allies in the City to keep an eye out for any other random Force-sensitives popping up out of nowhere too close for comfort. Just in case this should turn out to be more than a one-off.”

“You have no intention to track him.” A statement, not a question.

“Correct.” A long-suffering sigh. “Obi-Wan, I really don’t see how this would be any of your concern. The resemblance is uncanny, yes, but there’s nothing of him _in_ that boy. He doesn’t even remember his name for Force’s sake.”

Obi-Wan lowered his gaze, wrapping his fury in the serene folds of his robe. “I would rest more easily knowing that a Force-sensitive with this much… with this high a midichlorian count was kept track of.”

“We will keep tabs on any developments through our liaisons with the City,” Mace replied haughtily, then caught himself maybe a second too late. “Obi-Wan.” A sigh. “I don’t think attachment is at all warranted, or remotely advisable, in this situation.”

 _Attachment._ The word echoed in the hollows of his headache all the way home to his quarters. What did Master Windu know of attachment? What did Master Windu know of the maddening magnetic attraction of Qui-Gon Jinn and his maverick mind? Of the _light_ in those crinkly lopsided smiles? Of the sheer havoc those hands could wreak on _any_ sensitive body?

Mace Windu knew nothing of that. And perhaps that had better stay that way.

***

Sentients were easy to avoid at certain hours of the night shift, and the omnipresent droids could simply be outwitted. Obi-Wan had to admit it was his Padawan who had taught him how, and he vowed to thank him eventually. For now, he had a more urgent mission.

And so, nobody would know of his presence in the isolation bay except for the man sleeping on the bunk, curled up away from Obi-Wan, no longer hooked up to any wires. His matted locks were trailing over his shoulders and pooling on the thin sheets, the quiet flow of his breath moving his outline ever so softly. From behind, with the horns hidden by hair and the tattoos concealed by the paltry Healers’ Ward sheets, he almost looked human.

To Obi-Wan’s surprise, the door connecting the antechamber to the actual sick room yielded to a simple Force push. _They rely on us to be sensible,_ he thought, not without a tinge of amusement. 

Of course, a Force push, no matter how simple, meant Obi-Wan would not remain undetected for long. As if on cue, the form on the bed stirred, and a pair of light blue eyes blinked into focus under slightly raised brows.

“Forgive the intrusion,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “You may have no idea why I am standing here at your bedside in the middle of the night, but…” he trailed off, at a loss.

The man cocked his head to the side, letting a cautious smile play about his features. “It must be important, I take it?” he replied softly, and for a moment the sound of his voice made Obi-Wan want to scream with how deep inside him it pierced. _That tone. That lilting depth._ Younger, obviously, and without the accent Qui-Gon had brought with him from his homeworld and never quite lost. But the _resonance_ of that voice took Obi-Wan’s breath away.

“I… I wanted to meet you before you were released. Tomorrow.” Obi-Wan felt utterly lame, hamstrung in body and mind, unable to move from the bedside of this humanoid enigma.

The humanoid enigma pushed himself up to sit, legs crossed under the sheet. Even in the dim light of the various monitors and the emergency lighting trickling in from the door, Obi-Wan could tell that he was wearing nothing but his tattoos. _How very Qui-Gon._

As if to distract himself from where that train of thought would inevitably lead, Obi-Wan latched on to the first observation that sprang to his reeling mind.

“You’re shorter. Just a little.”

An eyebrow quirked up. “It seems to me that I am considerably taller than you, stranger.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, embarrassed. “Sorry. Where do I start. You are…”

“You tell me.” That disarming smile again. “The good folks of this institution seem to be unable to figure it out, and I’m no great help in my present state. Through there seems to be considerable interest in my ancestry, much more so than in _me_ as such.” He shrugged, apparently without rancor. “They put me back on my feet, which is nice. And patched my arm back together.” He waved his right hand with only a slight wince. “So… I assume you’ve showed up here in the middle of the night to shed some light on the whole story?”

 _Shed some light. That is what you’re doing, you impossible creature. Rude, sharp, horn-shaped light barely contained by a Force collar and ringing deep in my bones_.

“Well… that is a possibility, yes. You are…” Deep breath, Kenobi. “You remind me very much of a man I was very close with. And I could not stop thinking of you since I first laid eyes on you two days ago.”

“Strange,” the soft voice replied. “I don’t remember you.”

“You were unconscious,” Obi-Wan assured him. “I was called in because… well, they thought I could help identify you.”

“Which you evidently haven’t,” the man replied with a faint smile. “Because while they have been very forthcoming with all the pertinent details of my physical and neurological status, nobody has as much as written a name on my medical records.” He gestured at the small screen affixed to his bedside, then returned to fidgeting with his Force collar, fingertips absently caressing the metal. “I have a patient number, that’s all.”

Unbidden, Obi-Wan chuckled. “Healer Che actually calls you ‘Jinn Doe’ in her communiques. Not that that means anything to you.”

“It doesn’t,” the young man replied evenly. “I appear to have misplaced my entire history. I mean, what I can’t piece together from looking in the mirror.” An eloquent shrug, and the fingers of his good hand ran across his hairline, deftly avoiding the horns to bury fingertips in the braided dreads. “I don’t even have a name. So what was he like?”

“Who?”

“The man I remind you of. Your friend. I assume you’re going to tell me he was my father or something?”

Obi-Wan sighed. He should have known it would come to this. “I don’t know. No, I mean, I do know, obviously. I just don’t know if he relates to you in any meaningful way. He never mentioned… you’re not he. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to burden you with the past.”

“But you came here because I reminded you? I imagine that is a good thing, no?”

“Yes.” Almost imperceptible, Obi-Wan’s voice had cracked open, raw with emotion. “He was the kindest, most incorrigible, most demanding and beautiful person I have ever... lost.”

A long silence. Fingers massaging the base of ivory horns in a vain attempt to stimulate thought.

“I wish I could help you find him,” the Zabrak said softly. “But I am not he. I can’t even tell you who I am, really.” He reached out a hand, then thought better of it and left it lying on the sheets. Obi-Wan’s heart ached with the familiarity of that too-large hand.

“I will.” Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Tell you, I mean. If you will accept. I will… name you.”

“Do your worst, stranger.” The tinge of amusement was back in the young man’s voice. “If I like it, I may keep it.”

“ _Irdak_ ,” Obi-Wan said, decisively. 

The young man rolled the word around on his tongue, then brightened. “Good Zabrak name, I assume? I must admit I appear to only have intermediate ZSL skills, though something in my past must have caused me to acquire at least a partial set of traditional tattoos.”

“Dathomiri Zabrak,” Obi-Wan concurred softly. “You have the single central horn. “ A sigh. “Please don’t ask me how I know that. Anyway, yes. This is who you are to me. Irdak.” He straightened himself, level now with the strange ivory-horned face. “It means ‘nexus’. Or ‘confluence’. Place where things come together.”

The young man nodded. “I think I do like it. May I reciprocate?”

“If you will?”

“You, friend of my mysterious father, are to be known as Ter-zhikh from now on.” The voice was grave and made Obi-Wan’s skin shiver with how familiar it sounded, and the amusement glinting in those blue eyes made his heart overflow. “That means ‘stranger-who-names-people’.”

“I will bear it in my heart,” Obi-Wan replied slowly. “Which will be all I am allowed to bear. I… suppose I just wanted to reassure myself you really exist. Before you leave tomorrow morning.” A final nod, as if to himself. “I am not supposed to keep in touch with you.”

“How strange.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “It is not the Jedi way.” More quietly, he added, “I don’t like it either, but I think I might be better off not seeking someone in you that I know you cannot be.”

“You _named_ me.”

“That I did. And you are free to rename yourself, because I realize I have no sway over you. I apologize for the intrusion… it was a weak moment. Please allow - “

A hand on his forearm stopped him, its warmth burning through the layers of Obi-Wan’s sleeve.

“You are hurting,” the young man - Irdak - observed gently. “And I don’t want to make you hurt more by being here, next to you. I will, however, gracefully accept the name you gave me. _Irdak_. I like it. Perhaps you will find me by it one day. When you are healed.”

Obi-Wan nodded tightly, unable to form words. _Healed_. From what? From the raw presence of this strange unguarded youth who positively exuded raw Jinn-ness without any of the dimensions Obi-Wan had previously anchored that concept to? Healed from the way the horns on his forehead were piercing the image of a young Qui-Gon that he tried so hard not to see in this blank slate of a man?

How cruel to think he could heal from that, and then simply be able to see Irdak again.

***

The resolve had lasted for several months, close to a year actually. Obi-Wan was nothing if not stubborn.

The dreams and memories had thinned out over time, the image of the strange young man - Irdak, that was his name, at least in the fading images in Obi-Wan’s mind - receding into the background, buried under an avalanche of work, the neverending chores of a Jedi stretched thin in a world that seemed intent on ripping itself apart.

 _Healing_ was probably not the right word for it, but the wound had scabbed over enough for Obi-Wan to be able to go about his business and continue to exist in a world that had a free-floating half-Zabrak Qui-Gon descendant with no recollection of his past somewhere in it.

Every now and then, Obi-Wan would send out an inquiry to whomever was on community med duty, but nothing ever came back. _At least the lad doesn’t appear to be accident-prone_ , he thought in those moments, the oddly paternal nature of his inquiries sitting uncomfortably in his mind.

Of course, true to form, the rule had held true that you find what you’re looking for the moment you stop looking. 

And it was Dex, of all people, who’d mentioned him. Brought him up in casual conversation. Then had to double-check the contents of the drink he’d just served his old friend Kenobi to make sure he hadn’t accidentally spiked it with something poisonous to humans.

“You okay, mate? Did I say something wrong?”

Obi-Wan feigned a coughing fit, if only to explain the sudden flush to his features. “The name - did you just -?”

“Irdak? Yeah, he’s been a regular for a while here. Surprised you haven’t met him yet. Actually,” he chuckled a low and surprisingly dirty chuckle, “very surprised you haven’t met him yet. He’d be your type. Well, uh… if you do go for men who aren’t fully human? Which I think you… might?”

Obi-Wan made full use of his friend’s blossoming embarrassment at being unable to tell most humanoid species apart and regained his composure as much as he could.

“Bit taller than me, brown hair, blue eyes… and a crown of _horns_ on his forehead?” Obi-Wan supplied. 

Dex nodded, chins waggling decisively. “Incredible Irdak, they call him around these parts.”

_He’s using the name I gave him._

“So you _do_ know him, Obi-Wan… wait.” Yes, the wheels of humanoid species recognition were definitely churning in Dex’s head now, and it would have been amusing to watch if Obi-Wan hadn’t been so shocked by the casual mention of the name. “ _You_ know him. And he’s got… brown hair and blue eyes and…”

A large gray-pink hand landed on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “With exotic looks like that, I could have told you where to start looking from Day 1. Especially if he has his father’s skilled mouth on him.”

“He’s not Qui-Gon’s son.”

“Oh?” Dex actually had the good sense to look a bit crestfallen. Human species were definitely difficult.

“Not far off, though,” Obi-Wan conceded. “Anyway, I have... let’s say I have questions for the boy. Maybe he remembers me. Where did you find him, Dex?”

“Find him? It didn’t take much finding with that one… if you move in the right circles. Ahem.” A furtive glance in either direction, clearly for theatrical effect as much as to emphasize the conspiratorial whisper that followed, bathing Obi-Wan’s face in moist spice-scented breath.

“You may not want to be seen going there, Master Obi-Wan. At least not in your official function. It is…” 

Another of those Sithdamned dramatic pauses, and this time Obi-Wan was certain Dex was actually enjoying making his old friend squirm.

“...not a place of repute for a Jedi to visit.”


	3. Orbit

The hour after midnight would be the safest, he decided, on account of the likelihood that Anakin would actually be asleep. Not that he felt beholden to his apprentice for his comings and goings, but he preferred this one to remain under wraps.

He’d even changed into civilian clothes, somewhat uneasily it had to be said. For all that he was on a mission to not attract attention, he found himself unable to compromise on the freedom of movement and earth-tone color scheme that he had spent most of his life swathed in. The swishy half-length cloak was his best concession to what he assumed a well-to-do Citizen would wear on a night on the town; plus, it allowed him to conceal his lightsaber within its folds. Naturally, he expected to have to hand that in at some point in this endeavor, but that was what wide sleeves were for.

He had opted for a shinier material and a richer, darker brown than his usual tunics, and the combination almost most made him look like a fiery redhead. Certainly not like a Jedi Master on a furtive mission. 

The heads that turned as he passed the doorman and entered the establishment were almost certainly not in recognition. He had been told he cleaned up nicely, and that would be his working theory for the night. _It’s the hair, most likely._

He’d barely managed to throw his cloak over his arm and furnish himself with one of the indecently overpriced drinks from the bar that doubled as the showroom for the flesh on offer when Irdak, _Incredible_ Irdak planted himself on the nearest available bar stool. Indecently close.

Obi-Wan sipped his drink in defense, and had to suppress a cough. It was sweet, spicy, and evidently laced with some kind of stimulant.

Similar things could be said of the young man who was currently focusing all of his considerable Force presence on Obi-Wan. His dreads had been neatened up quite a bit, and the beads in them sparkled. He wore a skin-tight transparent long-sleeved top that added an eerie tint of blue to his skin, managing to offset his tattoos and match his eyes all at the same time. From what Obi-Wan could tell in the bar’s low light, there was a short, possibly also blue, skirt-like item covering him to mid-thigh, and black leggings that were too tight for Obi-Wan to allow his gaze to linger. 

“Well, hello there.” The smile appeared genuine, definitely reaching the young man’s eyes, and that slight crinkle to them very much reached Obi-Wan’s heart. “What a nice surprise. Didn’t expect to see you again.” An appreciative glance that lingered, and Obi-Wan felt a shiver run down his spine as those blue eyes raked him up and down from where Irdak was still seated. _Looking up at me. There’s no way in the galaxy he can know what that does to me._

“Nice outfit, stranger-who-names-people,” Irdak continued warmly. “And nice taste in pleasure workers, if I say so myself. I would be delighted to be at your service.”

“You… you are interested in men?” For some reason, Obi-Wan had not expected that, and it came out with more of a stutter than it should have. 

“Any gender and species as long as it’s physically sound. House rules for respect and consent apply.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all for me. Feel free to ask questions or go into detail about your preferences. Gives me something to work with. Otherwise I would say this may have been the shortest negotiation of your career, Master Jedi.” The smile was disarming, and Obi-Wan was sorely tempted to wipe it off those inviting, tantalizingly familiar lips. With his own.

“That sounds… I mean, I really came here to talk to you. I… haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

There was that quirked eyebrow again. “I would love to think that’s because of anything I did to you, but I suspect it’s more to do with the one I remind you of? You have questions.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.” Obi-Wan hadn’t felt this out of his depth in a long time. He took a sip of his drink to buy time. It was no less spicy and stimulating than the last time he tried that, and he vowed to stop trying for a while.

“And I may not be able to furnish you with much,” Irdak replied. “If you’ve come for answers about where I came from and who raised me, I’m sorry to say that is still very much a blank for me. My earliest memory is waking up at your Temple and being stared at disapprovingly by that Twi’lek healer lady.” He took another sip of his own drink, evidently much more inured to its effects. “Still, no memories means no trauma, am I right?”

Obi-Wan did not respond. Didn’t know how to respond, to be honest. Decades of negotiation training out of the window, owned by a faulty copy of Qui-Gon Jinn’s smile. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

“Yeah,” Irdak rejoined softly. “I know it’s a hollow philosophy but it’s the only one I’ve got. And all told, the present isn’t all that bad. I’ve got a place to stay, a pretty royal income, a great reputation with all the wrong people, steady employment…” He snorted, amused at how matter-of-fact that sounded. Time for that smile again. “And good company.”

“I doubt that,” Obi-Wan replied sourly. “You haven’t met me yet.”

“I make this the second time we’ve met, stranger-who-names-people. You haven’t even given me your real name yet, and yet you’re here. And if I may be so bold, you’d look utterly gorgeous with that little frown line smoothed out.” He ran a fingertip between his own eyebrows. “May I?”

Obi-Wan blinked, then nodded. Irdak’s finger was warm and insistent, gently massaging Obi-Wan’s forehead, finishing off with an elegant swipe over each of his brows. Peripherally, Obi-Wan wondered whether he’d had some sort of stimulant powder (or glitter?) on that soft blunt fingertip. Because that was what it _felt_ like to him.

“Obi-Wan,” he said. “My name is Obi-Wan.”

“Obi-Wan,” Irdak repeated. “Mine is still Irdak. And even if I didn’t like it, it’d be an unsound business decision at this point to change it.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Incredible Irdak. Not sure what to think about my contribution to that, to be honest.”

Irdak shrugged. “I could be persuaded to repay you in kind.” He gestured at the drink in Obi-Wan’s hand. “That has already bought you more than a chat in terms of my time. Put another one of those on your tab and I’ll be yours for the night. To _talk_ , if that’s your kink.”

“Is there…”

“Somewhere more private?” Irdak rose fluidly from the bar stool, and Obi-Wan spent a second reconciling the fact that those blue eyes smiling down at him were _not quite_ at the exact height they should have been. “Of course there is. If you’d like to follow me to my quarters, Obi-Wan?” 

He held out a hand, and Obi-Wan’s hand connected before he’d managed to formulate a response that would have been more apposite for a Jedi Master than ‘yes, yes please’.

From the booth in the far corner, a pair of interested eyes watched him be essentially led upstairs by Incredible Irdak. 

A pair of interested hands steepled over the dregs of a watered-down drink, and a pair of interested lips smiled a thin smile.

***

“Make yourself comfortable... Obi-Wan. Okay if I call you that? Or would you prefer ‘Master Jedi’?”

“Definitely not.” Obi-Wan was looking at his boots, peeking out from under loose trouser legs, the only part of his Jedi attire that he couldn’t bear to part with even when incognito.

“Fine with me. Anyway, there’s the couch since I’m assuming you weren’t planning on talking on the bed?”

Obi-Wan lifted his gaze off his boots, taking in his surroundings. The room was small but tastefully appointed, and it was quite plausible that the closets and dressers tucked away in the corners actually contained Irdak’s material possessions rather than the tools of his trade. Or possibly both. There was a small comm terminal integrated into the bedside table and a couple of large-format volumes of what looked like art displayed on the side table next to the couch, along with a half-full glass of a beverage that Irdak reached for immediately.

“Apologies. And yes, I actually live here. Since that’s what you seem to be wondering about?” He took a sip of the pale yellow drink, then draped himself on one end of the couch, one leg folded up under him, the other stretched out to its full impressive length. _When had he taken his shoes off?_ Obi-Wan was decidedly not happy with how this man was already wreaking havoc with his powers of observation.

“Nice. Yeah, not much smaller than my room at the Temple,” he observed, before parking his half-finished drink on the side table and then himself on the opposite side of the couch. Which put him just beyond the reach of the Zabrak’s knee.

“So,” Irdak said, eyebrows raised, one arm encompassing the room, himself included, in one fluid gesture. “I’m yours for the night. What were you looking for?”

Obi-Wan swallowed, and that caused Irdak to break into a grin again. “I’ve heard the stories,” the young man continued. “Your organization isn’t big on sexuality, is it? Rest assured your secrets are one hundred percent safe with me. So if you want me to roleplay your strict Master, I can probably fake that creditably...”

“Don’t,” Obi-Wan forestalled Irdak’s ramble with a raised hand. “You don’t understand.”

“Yet,” Irdak rejoined mildly. “That was what we came here for, no? Forgive me for talking with the filthy part of my brain sometimes. Occupational hazard.” He shrugged.

“No, I mean… he _was_. My Master.”

The young Zabrak’s lips parted in astonishment, then closed again. He was evidently forcing himself to think before responding, and it showed. “Your lover was your Master?” A soft exhale. “Okay, you Jedi are kinkier than I gave you credit for. Also, that’s not… encouraged, is it?”

“To put it mildly,” Obi-Wan answered. “If I hadn’t picked the most headstrong and creative mind of the Jedi Order to fall in love with I’d still be pining away.”

“Pining away in an unfortunate haircut, criminally underfucked,” Irdak opined. “I don’t think I would like that - being a Jedi, that is.”

“You realize you could have been one, given a different… set of circumstances?”

“If those different circumstances were to include being allowed to occasionally bend you over a random piece of furniture and loosen you up, I would have been inclined… Sorry.” A smirk, and another sip of his drink. “If you can’t tell, I’m really enjoying your company. Something about you makes my entire skin feel good. Well, and makes it want to touch as much of yours as possible. I get that way sometimes with people.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “You’re an untrained Force-sensitive, Irdak. That’s to be expected. Especially given that you appear to be descended from one of the more attuned individuals of the present age.”

“Your Master?”

“Yes.”

“What was his name?”

“Qui-Gon Jinn.” The name tasted strange in Obi-Wan’s mouth, as if stale from lack of use.

Irdak shook his head. “Doesn’t ring any bells. Sorry. But you say you lost him… I take it he died?”

“That’s not the half of it.”

“But I remind you of him.”

Obi-Wan took a deep centering breath. “Yes,” he said. “You remind me of him. You have his facial structure, his sky-blue eyes, his brownish mane, his enormous hands, his lopsided smile, his _voice_. You almost have his height, which is quite a feat for anyone with Zabrak ancestry. You have a shocking number of his mannerisms.” Obi-Wan rubbed his forehead and screwed his eyes shut. “You also have the features of the one who killed him.”

That made Irdak’s eyes go wide, and the way he leaned in instinctively as if to soothe Obi-Wan with his presence, then pulled back, realizing that might not be welcome… that was exactly how Obi-Wan felt in this moment. The temptation to drown himself in Irdak’s touch was overwhelming, but… he was _Irdak_. Not Qui-Gon.

“Not… I mean, not literally,” Obi-Wan continued, waving a hand perfunctorily. “I know about the Four Mothers and how those play into your genetics. It’s just… hard to look at a Zabrak, even a partial one, and not feel reminded.”

“Hmm.” Irdak was silent for a moment, fingers running absently around the roots of his horns and into his hair. “I won’t lie, it’s helped me with the more exotic end of my… chosen profession, but I’m not much of a Zabrak as these things go. I mean, I only speak the language non-natively so I think it’s pretty safe to assume I didn’t grow up on Dathomir or Iridonia…”

“Dathomir,” Obi-Wan interjected. “Odd number of horns.”

“Right.” Irdak nodded. “You would know. Then you can probably tell that my tattoos are a bit more of a feeble attempt at self-decoration than the real deal.”

“I would not presume,” Obi-Wan replied gently. “I can’t say I’ve seen that many Zabraks shirtless. And there is variation…”

“These _are_ a variation,” Irdak agreed. “They pass here on Coruscant, but the one time we had a full-blooded Zabrak client downstairs I almost got ejected for being an impostor. At least until they reminded her that what may be offensive to some may be a kink to others.” He chuckled at the memory. “Fun way to find out that what you’re wearing on your actual skin is apparently not up to the cultural standards of Dathomir. Anyway, sorry to hear that.”

Obi-Wan nodded absently, eyes focused on Irdak’s neckline, an enticing nexus of translucent blue fabric, pale skin, brown-shaded tattoos inscribed under the one and over the other, and gentle fingers mindlessly caressing all of the above as the young man processed Obi-Wan’s story.

A soft inquisitive hum of that deep voice roused Obi-Wan from his reverie.

“Sorry. The way you fidget with your fingers, always touching something… I noticed it in the medical ward. Very distracting.”

“Your people put a collar on me.” A sharply groomed eyebrow rose slightly. “That does tend to distract one. I can’t say I’m used to wearing those.”

“That is good to know - at least that means we can hope that wherever you were before you got here, you weren’t enslaved.”

Irdak nodded slowly, as if the thought genuinely hadn’t crossed his mind until that moment. His fingertips, meanwhile, had shifted to fidgeting with one of the tiny secondary horns on his temple, circling its base absently as he listened to Obi-Wan.

“And that. Like your hands need something to connect to at all times…” Obi-Wan sighed. “That was Qui-Gon too.” A soft snort. “One could argue that there are several interplanetary treaties that owe their existence to the fact that he would touch and hold on until the party in question saw sense.”

Irdak looked down at his hands with curiosity, as if he was seeing them for the first time too, then resolutely placed them on top of Obi-Wan’s.

“I imagine mine are a little different?” he asked softly.

“Well... “ Obi-Wan unfolded his own hands to properly examine his counterpart’s. “Really only as a matter of lifestyle. His nails were always bitten to the quick. And, well, not painted.”

Irdak wiggled his fingertips in amusement, making the holographic polish on his short but neat nails sparkle.

“Also, you have no sword calluses,” Obi-Wan continued. “Feels strange. Like a layer that just isn’t there.” He ran his fingers over the soft insides of Irdak’s hands, unsure where he was going with this train of thought. It felt good to touch, and Irdak appeared to make no move to stop him. On the contrary, he purred softly as Obi-Wan trailed fingertips along the lines on the young man’s palms, curling his fingers inward slightly to capture Obi-Wan’s hand in his, then pulled Obi-Wan’s hand to his lips and pressed a small kiss to his knuckles.

The sensation of warm breath on the back of his hand made Obi-Wan shiver involuntarily, and he _felt_ Irdak’s answering smile against his skin, like a feedback loop of touch. Another kiss followed, this one longer and lingering, allowing the soft insides of Irdak’s lips to explore the taste of Obi-Wan’s skin. 

“You taste nice,” the young Zabrak murmured. Obi-Wan did not know what to say to that, so he didn’t. And the exploration continued, kisses trailing up the back of his hand and into the sensitive hollow at the root of his thumb. Obi-Wan’s hand opened almost of its own accord, welcoming the questing lips, which were soon joined by the tip of Irdak’s tongue, painting warm tingly lines along the insides of Obi-Wan’s fingers.

At the bottom of his ring finger, the tongue stopped short. Another lick, as if to confirm, then Obi-Wan felt the young man’s smile blossom against his palm again. 

“Sword calluses, I assume?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan was surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded. “Years of lightsaber practice.”

“Mmh.” Irdak’s mouth did not stray from its feeding grounds on Obi-Wan’s palm, but the man’s hand made a beeline up Obi-Wan’s forearm, homing in on a spot on the outside just below the elbow and digging firm fingers into the flesh there. “Swordsman’s muscle.” Irdak disengaged his mouth from Obi-Wan’s hand for a second to smirk him full in the face. “You know what else gives you that little defined muscle, Master Jedi?”

Obi-Wan shook his head.

“Lots of hand jobs.” The chuckle was more than a little inviting. “Would you care for a taste?”

Obi-Wan blinked, blinked again, then left his eyes closed. “Actually, yes.”

Without waiting for a reaction or even opening his eyes again, he leaned forward, seeking Irdak’s mouth.

It was everything he hadn’t realized he’d been missing in the however many years he hadn’t kissed another living being. It was warm, welcoming, wet and filling his mouth with the sensation of soft flesh and his ears with the obscene little noises that the insides of human faces make when they get really, really close. It was glorious.

He must have moaned into the other man’s mouth because at some point during the odyssey that was this kiss, Obi-Wan felt that soft grin against his face again, a smiling mouth devouring his, tongue casually licking up the pieces of the broken little sounds that were coming from somewhere deep inside him.

Peripherally, Obi-Wan noticed that Irdak’s hands were busy further down, burrowing under his shirt, heat seeking heat, the simple contact sending electric shivers through Obi-Wan’s touch-starved body. When a fingertip found a nipple and dragged one sparkly nail across it, Obi-Wan jerked back as if scalded. 

There was no disappointment in the young man’s face, no shock or surprise. Just a gentle question, clear blue eyes focused on him, brows raised ever so slightly. _Do go on_ , the face seemed to say.

“Sorry. It’s so… I’m not used to this… any more.”

“You don’t unlearn,” Irdak murmured softly. “Your body remembers. What do your feelings tell you?”

Obi-Wan considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t put it into words.”

“Talk with your hands?” Irdak offered mildly. “I find that works for me.”

Almost automatically, Obi-Wan reached out first one hand, then the other, trembling slightly until they connected with the other man’s skin. Warm, dry skin that was smooth, opaque, and ivory-colored. He closed his eyes, leaving the unfamiliar coloring behind, and let his fingertips explore Irdak’s face.

The unfamiliar, clean-shaven chin and those mobile lips, so familiar in daylight and even more so against his fingertips. The sharp hairline, so far back on his head, now jagged and skirting the horns that grew out of his skull. Irdak hummed appreciatively as Obi-Wan’s fingers explored each of them in turn, from the tiny nubs just above the inner corner of his eyebrows to the proud crown points that shouted ‘Zabrak’ even at a distance, integral to the man’s silhouette.

“Sensitive,” Irdak explained. “The roots. Don’t know if you knew that?”

“Can’t say I’ve studied Zabrak erogenous zones,” Obi-Wan replied, amusement doing its best to mask the growing arousal in his voice. 

That soft chuckle again. Meltworthy. “You _are_ , Obi-Wan. That’s what you’re in the middle of doing.” He gently pried one of Obi-Wan’s hands off his horns and guided it to the front of his skirt. “There. My body likes you already. And I would love to welcome you inside.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes went wide at the casual invitation. “You mean…”

Was that an eyeroll? Obi-Wan was no longer sure he had the focus to observe mimic minutiae, and he was fairly certain it was not the two sips of the drink he’d had. His hands were thirsting for the touch of Irdak’s skin, and the boy seemed to be genuinely amused at his predicament.

Then he lifted his skirt, revealing a thoroughly split pair of leggings and exposing a shapely erection that was the same relentless ivory color as the rest of him. No darkening at the tip, no nest of thick curls at the root, and slightly slimmer than Qui-Gon’s. And yet Obi-Wan could not tear his eyes away, fingers burning to touch, to quench themselves against that cool, pale skin.

When his gaze had managed to ascend back to the heady heights of Irdak’s face, Obi-Wan was assaulted by another one of those smiles that made him feel warm and jittery all over, like he wanted to jump out of his skin and preferably into Irdak’s.

“Yours,” the young man purred, “might have an opinion on that, no?” He nodded at the bulge in the front of Obi-Wan’s trousers, for once not concealed by a shirt that was much shorter than his customary tunics. Obi-Wan blushed deeper, but made no move to avoid Irdak’s hands as they trailed up the length of his trapped cock, then squeezed, gently at first, then harder, until Obi-Wan burst open in a bone-deep groan.

“That’s what I thought.” Irdak grinned, then placed one of Obi-Wan’s own hands on it. “Hold on to that thought for me for a second.”

He dove for the bedside table and returned with a small pillow-like object cradled in one hand. He tore it open with a swift practiced move and it spilled all over his fingers, coating them in translucent shimmering blue goo. While his left hand was busy shooing away Obi-Wan’s and freeing the Jedi’s hungry cock, he spread the sticky slippery stuff all over his right, paying no mind to the obscene slick sounds he was making.

Obi-Wan wondered if it was possible to explode from just watching someone’s hands.

When the hand wrapped around his cock, spreading the sticky goo all over it, all thought went out the window.

“Good?” Irdak asked. 

“Uh,” Obi-Wan replied weakly. “Mmh.”

“I take that as a yes.” Obi-Wan couldn’t help noticing how Irdak’s voice had taken on a breathier quality too. “This will dry into a nice elastic barrier in a few seconds. See?” He took his hand off Obi-Wan’s throbbing cock and moved it ever so slowly closer to Obi-Wan’s face where he half-sat, half-lay indecently sprawled on the couch, and just as Obi-Wan had worked up the brainpower to formulate a response along the lines of ‘what made you think you could stop touching me, you impossible man?’, he delicately peeled the dried layer of shimmery blue off his palm. The indignity of it snapping against his nose registered dimly with Obi-Wan, but was eclipsed immediately by the sight of Irdak kneeling up to straddle Obi-Wan and then reaching behind himself to where his split pants allowed access to his most intimate parts.

“Mmmmh.” Irdak’s eyes drifted closed as he fingered whatever was giving him pleasure there, and Obi-Wan was helplessly torn between drinking in the sight of his face, relaxed in bliss, and the flex of his arm muscles as he pushed and pulled, fucking himself in short sharp thrusts until the object came free with an obscene wet pop and fell from Irdak’s hand, discarded in favor of something clearly much more desirable.

Scooting forward, Irdak positioned himself over Obi-Wan and summarily sank Obi-Wan’s cock into his warm, tight body.

Obi-Wan lost the ability to form coherent words for a moment or two, strangled gasps punctuating the deep hum of contentment coming from above him. 

“Hhuh,” Irdak whispered, slightly winded. “Perfect fit. Gods, that feels wonderful. Feel that?” He tightened his muscles, wringing another desperate groan from Obi-Wan. “And that?” Obi-Wan felt something inside _him_ expand, as if the boy had reached inside his body and grabbed hold of his center, wrapping it in cords of rude Force light. 

“You’re a rare one, Obi-Wan,” he said, and the look on his face betrayed genuine pleasure. “It’s not just my body that likes you inside it.”

Obi-Wan felt the last of his resolve, the last of his dignity swept away on the flood of liquid emotion, the sheer sensory overload, and the _light_ emanating from Irdak’s touch. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You’re _good_.”

“Likewise.” Irdak’s voice had gone raspy, and somehow that made it even more intimate, more magnetic. “And yes. Good fuck. We can definitely do that.”

Obi-Wan watched in awe as Irdak tightened his thigh muscles, raising himself painfully slowly until only the tip of Obi-Wan’s cock remained inside him, only to slam himself back down, gravity driving Obi-Wan deeper inside than he thought possible, drawing a moan from both of them. 

Then he did it again. And again. Obi-Wan lost track of time, space, and self, reduced to a bright spot of raw Force energy enveloped in a matching one that somehow managed to be tight and hard and soft in all the right places and he could not remember feeling this way in an eternity.

Just as he managed to convince his remaining brain cells that there was no possible way he could get any more aroused, Irdak reared up, wiped his sweaty face and then leaned in, bracing himself with his hands on Obi-Wan’s wrists, pinning him down with those hands, and all but sucking Obi-Wan into the orbit of his greedy body.

Obi-Wan went supernova.

He dimly registered that he was screaming, that there were tears quivering in the corners of his eyes. Eyes that were screwed shut because the light was too bright, the sensation was too much, and the face of the one that was making him feel so light, so bright, so _right_ , was someone other than Qui-Gon.

That Qui-Gon was no more, and that his treacherous body still welcomed, still craved those touches. Those touches that continued exactly where Qui-Gon had abruptly left off all those years ago.

***

TARGET ACQUIRED.  
TRANSMITTING LOCATION COORDINATES.  
TRANSMITTING VISUAL.

The small droid hovered atop the building opposite the establishment, its camera eye focused on the street below, picking up the grainy silhouette of a cloaked figure leaving in the middle of the night, his face averted from passers-by but sufficiently readable to its impassive eye.

AWAITING ORDERS.

Seconds later, it lifted silently into the air and followed.

***

There was another pair of eyes watching Obi-Wan as he left, human eyes. Eyes that were highly pleased with the visible flush on his face and the dishevelled state of his hair.

Hair was a sore point for her; she’d had to cut almost all of her own off in order to pull off her escape from the prison camp, leaving some poor wretch in her stead whose blood samples would be close enough to pass her off as herself, and whose face was left disfigured enough to make positive identification through traditional means impossible. She’d had to sacrifice her hair though, to match the poor woman’s length. All told, it had been worth it, and she hoped to have many years ahead of her still to grow it all back. Or, failing that, to work on inventing a way to accelerate hair growth. Which would be a nice fallback plan if the main one should fail. 

The main plan was currently playing out very nicely. Unexpectedly well, all told. Especially given the early setbacks.

For a while she’d been convinced that the high point of the whole experiment had been the sample extraction (ah, the pained look on his face as he swam in and out of consciousness, Force-impervious restraints holding him rigidly still under her hands as he was forced to give up his seed to her), and truth to be told, most of the eighteen years that followed had been a downhill struggle.

The first had been the worst, and she was grateful that _he_ did not remember the sight of the dozens of failed siblings in their vats of nutritive solution. Summarily robbed of the ability to procreate herself by an experiment gone horribly awry early on in her stellar career, she had kept working, weeding out female embryos, culling the growing males that were all variations on the same theme, and all failing slightly, in all different ways. 

This one was the only one that had made it even to walking upright. He was also the one with the freest rein given to the Zabrak part of his ancestry, the famed stubbornness of his Mothers pulling him through, and at the same time leaving him with the least satisfactory outcome in terms of resemblance. He was almost an inch shorter than the target range on account of the Zabrak part of his ancestry, and to make matters worse, he had expressed _horns_.

She would not realize what a drawback those would be until she learned of his unwilling father’s unfortunate demise. And the creature that killed him. 

Under the circumstances, he was doing extremely well. And he wore the horns well too, if she said so herself. 

The memory wipe had been precise enough to allow him to retain the easygoing personality he’d built over the years of growing up as the favored child, first of Arbor Industries and then later of the Melasaton Institute for Young Men, without allowing him to retain any of the details of those years.

He was capable in body and mind, perfectly capable of the one task he had been designed for. And he was demonstrating it in spades.

It had taken pleasantly little interference to get him situated here. The boy simply had talent, and she’d had to accept a detour via a particularly insistent sugar daddy before he was successfully installed in this slightly more… Jedi-accessible location.

So far, the signs were promising. That had been quite the flush on Master Kenobi’s face, and even without the aid of the pheromone detector tucked away in her handbag, her sense of smell was developed enough to notice the scent of sex about him.

And this time she would not fail. She would not let him get away. This time she would create the perfect distillate of Force-sensitive humanity, blank and ready to do her bidding. Equipped with the power and the physical dexterity as well as the beauty of two of the galaxy’s premier Jedi. _Bonded_ Jedi.

Would it have been easier to just capture a female Force-sensitive and impregnate her? Absolutely, but she abhorred the genetic chance game of biological pregnancy. Besides, that was far less repeatable than what she had in mind: whittling down live tissue samples into malleable stem cells, still inhabited by their host’s midichlorians and chromosomes but forming, in themselves, the root of a new system of infinite branches. 

A pound of flesh each for a new man.

A live substrate donor was all she needed; in his time, Obi-Wan Kenobi would join the Four Mothers in the pantheon of scientific discovery as the progenitor of a new race of superhumans carved from pieces of his body and that of his Master’s horned offspring. The two would dwindle under her hands and grow into an army that would carve the name of her laboratory, the name of her House, and her own name into the annals of history. (Far more permanently than any whiny genetic offspring ever would have…)

Her House itself would naturally be staffed entirely by the new race of humans, willingly doing her every bidding. Possibly even stooping so low as to attempt to reproduce biologically with her, for all that her own oocytes were no longer residing inside her body. Her pleasure centers still were, and she would not refuse the attentions of multiple pairs of Jinn’s hands and Kenobi’s lips. Not in a million years.

Her House would be fruitful and multiply, and her name would be renowned echoing down the millennia.

Well done, Jenna Zan Arbor. Well done.


	4. Gravitation

Obi-Wan utterly failed to have a bad feeling about this.

He knew that he should, knew intellectually that that’s what would be normal and expected after getting himself so thoroughly seduced, but try as he might, he found himself utterly unable to regret giving in to Irdak’s advances. 

If anything, it had felt less like making love to Qui-Gon all those years ago, and much more like giving in to the Force itself. Which made no sense on an intellectual level, but he hadn’t spent the most gruelling years of his life as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan without picking up at least some sense of the Living Force and its tendency to meddle in the affairs of mere mortals.

He did have a bad feeling about his future though, because what was happening here was definitely a level of attachment that the Order would frown upon. Especially directed at an untrained, unaffiliated Force-sensitive with no memory to speak of, an exact copy of Qui-Gon Jinn’s smile, and a laser-like focus on one Obi-Wan Kenobi’s pleasure.

He would have said it felt like being in someone else’s fevered dream, but he’d had that luxury taken from him the first morning he woke up from one of his own dreams, hard, and on one memorable later occasion, wet. No, he was not in a dream. The memory of how magnetic that man’s touch had felt all over his most sensitive parts, that was his new reality. 

His most sensitive parts being, well, most of him. 

The fact that Irdak was _horned_ as well as horny paled utterly behind all the similarities and quirks and the sheer devastating sensuality, and Obi-Wan had to admit that having his idea of Zabrak-ness summarily taken over by Irdak rather than Maul was a relief, not least for any of his horned colleagues at Temple who would be less likely to be subjected to a thunderous Kenobi frown in the future.

Confluence indeed. Like the Force, Irdak definitely had an annoying habit of flowing into things and sweeping Obi-Wan off his feet, and he knew he should _not_ like that as much as he evidently did. 

Serenity over passion was decidedly a challenge where Irdak was concerned.

In his more lucid moments, Obi-Wan chided himself for giving in, not because of some hypothetical imperative to deny himself pleasure, but because he was evidently _using_ Irdak for his own pleasure. 

In his more lucid and less light-filled moments, he was grimly convinced that there was no way Irdak could be happy where he was and that it was somehow Obi-Wan’s responsibility to free him from the life he was living. But where would he take him? Outside the bounds of the Order, Master Kenobi was hardly a rock of dependability. Besides, he had Anakin to look after…

Who chose just that moment to wander past, an armful of droid parts in tow and a memory chip between his teeth. 

“Heading out to study group with Jax and the geek squad. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m away, Master.”

He was out the door before Obi-Wan had managed to formulate a reply. _Am I so easy to read?_

He shored up his shields just in case, checked his chron, and opened the drawer that contained his meager civilian wardrobe. 

_I’d better go check on him. Just to talk._

***

It took a questionable application of the Force to the mind of the Wookiee doorkeeper to bribe his way into the establishment in the middle of the day, before official opening hours. He’d left the poor creature with the impression of “official business” and an echo of that well-dressed redheaded gentleman being of the medical profession somehow and here to ensure the physical well-being of the live-in workers.

Nothing to see here, move on.

When he got to the right door he couldn’t resist reaching out with the Force, not least because he would be mortified to interrupt anything and the thought of Irdak in another’s arms, realistic though it damn well should be, made his insides twinge in a wholly un-Jedi-like way. 

What he sensed through the door, however, was calm, like a low, banked glow. Embers of passion, but solitary.

He raised a hand to knock, once, twice. An indefinite amount of time later, he heard a soft shuffling sound, then the small spy-hole in the door slid open to reveal a very blue eye. It widened slightly, and the door sprang open before Irdak’s smile had even stretched to its full size.

“Obi-Wan.”

“May I come in?”

“I don’t see what good you’d do out in the corridor… please.” He stepped aside and gestured for Obi-Wan to come inside. It did not escape Obi-Wan’s notice that he’d stepped aside just enough to make Obi-Wan brush against him as he slipped inside the room. 

“I woke you?”

Irdak smirked. “Excellent deduction skills, Master Jedi. Yes, I am not in the habit of working in this… state of undress.”

With the door securely shut behind him, Obi-Wan allowed himself a thorough look at his gracious host. His hair was unbound, snaking down his shoulders, and he was wearing a seriously oversized sleep shirt that looked so well-worn and soft that Obi-Wan’s hands itched to touch. His tattoos were faintly visible through the threadbare fabric that, Obi-Wan suspected, had once been white but had since faded to a comfortable silvery gray.

“I apologize. I just… something told me I needed to see you.”

“Did it now?” The amusement was evident in Irdak’s voice for all that he put on his best stern, one-eyebrow-raised Qui-Gon impression. “Do we need to collect a data point on how fast I can manage to take the edge off and get you relaxed?” He reached out a hand in the general direction of Obi-Wan’s groin, and only Obi-Wan’s instinctive flinch stopped him short. “Sorry. Anyway, welcome to my personal time. Make yourself comfortable. I certainly will.” He flopped back on the bed, burrowing into the sheets until he had reached maximum seductiveness, one long leg exposed, sleep shirt rucked up above his hips exposing a perfect, ivory bottom, and his face happily rubbing into the pillow like some giant cat.

Obi-Wan absently wondered what Irdak’s pillows must be made of to stop them from getting shredded by those horns, but he knew full well that that was the sane part of his mind trying to send one last message before going under in the maelstrom of Irdak’s raw sensuality.

He sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. “I did not mean to intrude - “

“Pffth.” A dismissive wave of Irdak’s paw. “I didn’t _have_ to let you in on my own time so let’s just assume that I did because I wanted you in here. With a possible side order of ‘in here’ if I haven’t lost my touch yet.” The hand waved in the general direction of Irdak’s shapely bottom before flopping on the sheets again, perfectly relaxed. “So, how the fuck did you get past Naglanna anyway?”

“He is under the impression I am a healer who’s here for some sort of medical check-up,” Obi-Wan replied. “Let’s leave it that way, shall we?”

Irdak quirked that eyebrow again. “And here I thought you weren’t into role-playing.”

“I’m not.” The silence stretched a little too long for Obi-Wan’s comfort.

“Yet,” Irdak finished drily, at exactly the right moment. “There’s a world out there, Master Jedi, that you haven’t even scratched the surface of.” A soft smile. “Which is not to say that your reactions to just plain vanilla sex aren’t apt to blow a Zabrak’s horns off, mind.” He petted the tiny nubs on his forehead, soaking up the small waves of pleasure that evidently gave him. “You’re a natural, Obi-Wan. At least this humble body thinks so.”

“Flatterer.”

“Cross my hearts and hope to die,” Irdak replied, raising his head off the pillow and directing the full power of his mussed morning look at Obi-Wan. “I mean, I obviously enjoy most varieties of sex, otherwise what the fuck would I be doing working here, but… let’s just say that felt like way more than your regular nice fuck.” He shrugged. “Forgive a simple man for hoping there’s more where that came from?”

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose, well aware that his own body was more than willing to just insert itself into the Obi-Wan-shaped space that was calling to him on that artfully dishevelled bed. 

“Are you for real?” he said, more to himself than to Irdak. “I mean, really? What is this? What am I even doing here? Am I being drugged? Are you? What about your memories? Do I need to break you out of here? This doesn’t feel… real!” 

He buried his face in his hands, but didn’t have the resolve to get up and walk away. Especially not when he felt one long leg curling around his hip from behind, closely followed by a pair of arms holding him in as chaste a hug as Irdak had probably attempted in his lifetime. Or what he remembered of it.

“Ssssh, Obi-Wan.” The closeness of that familiar voice, the warmth of his breath against the side of Obi-Wan’s neck made Obi-Wan want to run away, and strike out at that smile, and eat it off Irdak’s face, and cry, and rut himself senseless against that painted skin, all at once. “I’m okay. Really. As far as I can tell, I’m okay. I’m not the one you want me to be, but I’m a pretty good me.”

“I’m not sure who I want you to be at this point,” Obi-Wan whispered. “Not sure why I even keep coming here. Except it… it feels right.”

Obi-Wan felt a nod against the side of his neck. “Sometimes that’s all we’ve got to go on. I’d love to dispense some callous whore wisdom at this point but I’ve got nothing.” He shrugged. “Haven’t been at it long enough to be callous yet.”

“This is really what you want to do… with your life?”

“For now, it’s what I’ve got. It’s keeping me in food and ridiculous outfits, and I’m stashing credits away for when the ridiculous outfits don’t do it anymore.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help but smile at the idea. “You realize that the man who makes up the majority of your genetic material was absolutely irresistible well into his sixties?” he asked. “Silver-shot hair and all… you have a bright future ahead of you, young man.”

“Ah, you may be biased, Master Kenobi.” That soft chuckle again, and if Obi-Wan wasn’t feeling the gentle scratch of horns at the side of his head, he could have sworn Qui-Gon had just risen from the dead and wrapped himself around him, ready to forcibly drag him out of a morning funk with those impossible, irreverent hands of his. “But I certainly wouldn’t mind if you stuck around to verify.”

“I… would have a hard time sharing,” Obi-Wan whispered, hating how this conversation had taken him into the dark, sticky center of his feelings with barely any detour. 

Irdak laughed. “Greedy. I knew it.” A hand reached up for Obi-Wan’s chin and tilted his face towards where Irdak could see. “I would be absolutely fucking honored to try and see how long you could handle my undivided attentions, Obi-Wan. I’ve heard great things about Jedi stamina.”

The moan that escaped Obi-Wan’s mouth was _definitely_ not what he intended to respond to that, but coherent speech was fast becoming an unnecessary nuisance as the implications of those words took root in Obi-Wan’s imagination, blooming into a jungle of possibility.

“I came here to make sure you’re okay, you horny bastard,” he managed between small, jerky thrusts into where Irdak’s hand had found the evidence of his arousal. 

“I think we’ve established that I am,” Irdak rejoined mildly, all the while reducing Obi-Wan’s center to a throbbing mass of need. “And we’re about to make me even more so. And you. Free of charge. Also,” and for a second Obi-Wan thought he saw the evidence of how much effort it took Irdak to pull himself away far enough to really stare into his eyes, “calling a half-Zabrak a ‘horny bastard’ is not what I expected from the galaxy’s premier negotiator. I’d say that calls for punishment but I fear I’d have to get you coherent first before we can start _that_ negotiation.”

Obi-Wan’s groan at that was only partially one of pure need; that said, it worked as intended, drawing Irdak’s hand back to where it belonged, massaging Obi-Wan’s cock through his pants.

“Such lovely things I could do to you, Obi-Wan.” The silken purr was back at his ear, giving him full-body shivers. “Wrap you up in rope and let you stew in your own juices until you beg for my touch. Or maybe just a simple pair of binders and my favorite little buzztoy up your ass, making you come again and again until you’re begging for me to stop lest you pass out from the sensation overload… mmmh yes. That’s a good one.” 

Dimly, amid the ocean of sensation that was threatening to drown him, Obi-Wan felt Irdak’s erection pushing into the small of his back. His voice had gotten deeper and rougher. “Or I could just put you on your knees, with nothing but my voice. You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you? Kneel for me and use that beautiful mouth of yours on me, just the way I like it?”

Obi-Wan was sure his mouth was less than beautiful right now, babbling incoherent words of bliss and encouragement and deep, bone-shattering need, hips pumping mindlessly into Irdak’s hand. When the other hand found Obi-Wan’s mouth and closed over it, the dam burst and Obi-Wan spent himself in muffled cries and helpless, glorious thrusts until he was light-headed with the sheer exertion of it, sucking in great gulps of breath through his nose and letting them escape as tiny, sated whimpers as he rode the aftershocks.

“Fuck,” he heard Irdak’s soft voice from somewhere near his ear. “You’re a force of nature.”

Obi-Wan twitched involuntarily as Irdak’s hand pulled away from the oversensitized sticky mess he’d made of himself. “Mmhr,” was all he could manage.

“Yeah yeah, we’ll get to the cleanup in a minute,” Irdak murmured breathily. “First, I actually need a hand here myself.” He fell back on the bed, shirt pushed up above his nipples, proud erection on full display, and took himself in hand with quick, expert strokes. Obi-Wan felt way too boneless to offer to help in his present state, but he did manage to flop on top of Irdak, cheek pillowed against one long thigh, with the best view in the house.

He’d just managed to get himself together enough to wrap a loving hand around Irdak’s smooth balls when he felt them shudder in his hand and Irdak’s hips arched off the bed in a sharp orgasm that filled the air with the scent of sex and sweat and Irdak. 

When he trailed a fingertip over Irdak’s hip, looking for the trail of seed, Irdak giggled. 

“Ticklish?”

“Sensitive.”

Obi-Wan smiled lazily into Irdak’s thigh. “How you manage to be a pleasure worker is anyone’s guess.”

“I will have you know,” Irdak groaned, “I don’t usually let myself orgasm, even when it’s good. I spread the warm tight feeling around my entire body. I’ve been told that makes me fucking irresistible but clearly that’s not true here.”

ObiWan’s head snapped up. “And I will have _you_ know that I am very well capable of resisting temptation - “

“- but that’s also clearly not true here,” Irdak finished with a laugh. “Some pair we are, huh? I haven’t felt this… glowy in a long time.”

“Force-enhanced sex,” Obi-Wan groaned. “Welcome to my world. If they allowed us to get attached, that’s all we’d be doing all day.”

A snort that melted into a full-throated laugh. “The secret of the Jedi. Wonder what they’d pay me for that?”

“The world doesn’t want to know. And I should be getting back anyway, before my apprentice gets suspicious.”

“With that well-fucked look on your face? Honestly, I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.”

“I could tell him I’ve been sparring with the real underworld. Specifically, a spiky-headed bastard who wouldn’t let me get a word in edgeways so I had to get creative getting through to him.”

“There’s a market for that, you know,” Irdak replied, amusement slowly eclipsing the blissed-out warmth in his voice. “Riding Zabrak horns, I mean. Mine are a bit pitiful for the purpose but if you ever get a full-blood on your hands it’s apparently quite the experience. Mostly for females but at this point I’d have a hard time putting anything past your filthy mind, Master Jedi.”

“Shut up, you horny bastard.”

This time, when that eyebrow quirked and Irdak pointed one lazy finger at the ivory crown on his forehead, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but dissolve in helpless, sated laughter.

***

TARGET ACQUIRED.  
TRANSMITTING LOCATION COORDINATES.  
TRANSMITTING VISUAL.

Slightly less grainy in full daylight, the droid’s footage now clearly showed one Obi-Wan Kenobi exiting the not-yet-opened establishment with a decided spring in his step. 

AWAITING ORDERS.

The droid hovered for a good long while before its owner responded.

SAVING.  
RETURNING TO HOME BASE.

With a soft whirr, it rose into the lanes of Coruscant traffic and disappeared from view.

***

“Look, this is the best I can get you in terms of visual.” Jenna Zan Arbor was getting exasperated with the unreasonable demands of what was, after all, nothing more than a band of hired thugs. “Take it or leave it. I’m sure I can find someone else to do the job for cheaper in this city.”

“Easy, lady.” The leader, a platinum blond human with a scar across his nose, had the temerity to put a placating hand on Jenna’s arm, which she shucked off with an imperious gesture.

“I’ve given you more than enough to work with,” she continued. “You have the still pics, and I’ve offered to hack the comm unit in the room but that is the best we can do without cutting the owners of the establishment in. And even then we’d only have audio because the screen on that thing doesn’t bend that way. Not that I’d mind audio from what these two are getting up to in there but I’m sure _you_ can do without that. So. Break in, stun, extract. No unnecessary attention. I’ll get you the equipment overnight if you accept. And I need them alive. Both of them. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear,” the blond growled. 

“Good. Now’s where you get to name your price, and I get to laugh. So let’s skip to your _final_ price.”

“Twenty-eight thousand credits. Additional for any injuries incurred on our side.”

Jenna Zan Arbor didn’t laugh. She smiled.

“Deal.”

***

The room absolutely reeked of sex - or maybe Obi-Wan had simply forgotten how much his sense of smell deepened in the moments before and after orgasm. It was like he could smell the perfume of the people in the next room over. Or the scent of the sunrise that was still hours away. Tucked safely in Irdak’s arms after a particularly vigorous round of fucking that had left him boneless and quite a bit sore, Obi-Wan allowed himself to drift.

“Irdak?”

“Yes?” No, there was no way he’d ever get used to the sound of that voice just after sex, a voice like rough silk trailing across his skin.

“This time you’ve broken me,” he declared softly. “Tiny pieces. How the fuck can you go that long and not combust from the sheer friction?”

“I would say years of training but I’m afraid it would be a bit rich saying that to a Jedi Master,” Irdak murmured. “Besides, I’m young. And single-minded.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Whoever thought of crossing Qui-Gon Jinn with a Zabrak deserves a medal for creating the most stubborn creature in the galaxy,” he declared. “And quite possibly the sexiest.”

“I came twice, you know,” Irdak whispered into Obi-Wan’s ear. “You were just too far gone to notice.”

Obi-Wan groaned. “See above. Broken me.”

“Give me a few minutes to recover and I’m sure I’ll be able to stick you back together. There’s enough sticky mess around to achieve that, I’m sure. Or, failing that, I’ve got a nice stash of ropes in that bottom drawer.”

“No rope,” Obi-Wan sighed. “Pieces are way too small.”

“I have something more delicate. Here…”

And Obi-Wan spent the last few waking minutes of his night watching Irdak playfully weave their fingers together with strands of his hair.

*** 

“Here.”

A box slid across the table in the back booth, and Jenna made sure she’d let go before it got into the orbit of the leaning blond thug. She wanted nothing to do with actually touching him.

“I need those back, you understand?”

“Sure, lady. Whatever. These the real thing?” He opened the lid of the box, then whistled through his incomplete set of teeth. 

Jenna nodded, knowing full well that the whistle was caused less by the sight of two dull metal collars or the locking chip embedded in the box’s lining between them but by the blatantly legible credit chip balanced on top of the whole arrangement. 

“As real as that credit chip. Half up front, the remainder upon delivery. Now, as for those collars.”

The man snapped the lid shut, tearing himself away from the welcome sight of this much money. “Fire away.”

“They need to be situated as quickly as possible, and they need to stay on the subjects at all times, so make sure their hands are thoroughly out of commission.” A heavy pause.

“Otherwise, you will regret this.”

***

TARGET ACQUIRED.  
TRANSMITTING LOCATION COORDINATES.  
TRANSMITTING VISUAL.

The camera footage was barely usable; it was one of Coruscant’s infrequent rainy nights, and while the precipitation went some way towards clearing the atmosphere of pollution, it did very little to enhance the visual. Between the stray condensation on the camera lens and the glare of rain-soaked walkways, the droid had a hard time picking out a convincing image.

There he was. Obi-Wan Kenobi, in his customary disguise, _entering_ the establishment. 

AWAITING ORDERS.  
REQUESTING REINFORCEMENTS.  
RETRANSMITTING VISUAL.  
ASSUMING POSITION.

Seconds later, the droid retracted its camera lens and slowly drifted down the side of the building.

***

“Fuck, what was that?”

Lust-glazed blue eyes flew open and Irdak shuddered all over at the unexpected touch. 

Obi-Wan smiled sweetly, keeping his hands exactly where Irdak could see them, a firm grip on the man’s thighs providing leverage for the enthusiastic pounding that took all his self-control to slow down in mock concern.

A needy whimper escaped Irdak’s lips, and Obi-Wan stilled his hips. “This?” he asked softly.

Irdak moaned with abandon as a ghost touch swirled around his leaking cock.

“Or this?” 

Oh, the squirming, the play of muscles under painted ivory skin as he tried to struggle free of the invisible bonds, the firm incorporeal hands that held him, grabbed him, tied him down by his hair and held him up by his own throbbing flesh. Held him spread open for Obi-Wan’s pleasure.

“Oh fuck, yes. That. And that… don’t fucking stop, don’t stop. Hhhh… harder. Please.”

The sheer need in that voice would have been enough to catapult Obi-Wan over the edge under normal circumstances. But this time was different. This time, Obi-Wan had _practiced._

_That my advanced Force manipulation skills would come in useful for this of all things_ , was the last thought Obi-Wan bothered putting into words before he let himself be swept away on the current of Living Force that seemed to swirl around Irdak at all times and grew into a wild maelstrom whenever he was aroused.

And tonight, Obi-Wan was determined to be a matching hurricane.

“Oh Gods… so good. Good. Gah.” 

Obi-Wan was sure he’d leave bruises on Irdak’s thighs, for all that his skin was near-impossible to discolor. Irdak didn’t flush in the heat of sex either, he just sweated and then exploded all over you in a messy flood of raw light and barely-coherent syllables. 

Mentally chanting a litany of concentration, Obi-Wan reached into the Force and closed the last gaps in the blanket of touch that was covering Irdak’s skin. Firmly.

The strangled moans that made it past the tightness in Irdak’s throat, past the invisible hand covering his face, past the sheer _possession_ of his body as it was being pumped relentlessly full of pleasure, were almost enough to make Obi-Wan come on the spot, and it took a concerted application of his years of training to make him keep his eyes open and drink in the sight of Irdak writhing under him in the grip of a massive full-body climax, muscles clenching, seed spurting, head thrown back, voice screaming itself hoarse and tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. It was truly a sight to behold, and seemed to go on for _minutes_. Minutes that sorely tested Obi-Wan’s resolve as Irdak’s muscles clenched around him again and again with each juddering aftershock, driving another small moan out of the open mouth until there was nothing left and gravity more than intent made those blue eyes drift open.

“H… hi. Ooahgrrr!”

Obi-Wan could only imagine what that last thrust must have felt like to Irdak, in his current oversensitized state. His own cock was half a thrust away from exploding as it was, and the sight of Irdak in the throes of an almost painful pleasure overload turned out to be more than enough: in the middle of pulling back for that final slam back into the glorious needy body, Obi-Wan’s control gave out and the wave overtook him, sending him crashing down into the impossible landscape of Irdak’s skin.

Which meant that the next crash, when it happened seconds later, took just that moment too long to register in Obi-Wan’s mind.

“Nobody move! Murrik, grab the cloak!”

Obi-Wan jerked upright, senses on full alert. Where the door had been, a gaping hole was filled with shady-looking creatures and the business ends of several blasters. One of the intruders had indeed grabbed Obi-Wan’s cloak and balled it into a bundle in his enormous orange fist, effectively robbing Obi-Wan of the chance to call his lightsaber to himself.

Three, four, five of them, all armed. The first one almost on top of him already, advancing with a dirty grin on his face under a bleached mop of hair. Peripherally, Obi-Wan was offended at the man’s smell. _Where was Irdak?_

He managed to Force-push the stinking blond across the room, barrelling into one of his comrades, but Obi-Wan knew the best he could hope for in his present condition, outnumbered five to one and _naked_ , was to not get himself shot. And not get Irdak shot.

He kept his eyes on the blond thug, defiant, and managed to split the man’s eyebrow with his last blow before a swift kick to the temple sent him reeling. The last thing he saw was a thin band of dark grey metal in the bleeding thug’s hands before the enticing landscape of Irdak’s skin and the familiar glow of his Force aura went dark all at once.


	5. Collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing, lickworthy art for this chapter by tornado_fox.

When Obi-Wan came to, he had to force himself to not open his eyes immediately. _Best not let them know you’re awake_. He was lying on his side, on a cold concrete floor that told him little except that he was definitely not in Irdak’s quarters any more.

His head was hurting with a throbbing pain and a constant ringing in his ears, and he distinctly felt the tug of a trail of dried blood across his forehead, but mercifully there seemed to be no running or warm blood anywhere on his face. 

The Force was dead to him, and he suspected that was entirely the effect of the slim, heavy metal collar collar around his neck; the only item of clothing, if it could be called that, that he still had on him.

Reaching out with his remaining senses, Obi-Wan tried his best to take stock of the situation. Across the room, he heard a shuffling that could possibly be resolved as several pairs of feet; also, murmured conversation in a language he didn’t speak.

Just beyond the walls of the room, a buzz as if of traffic going by, but somehow closer. Inconclusive.

Much more immediately, and much more comfortingly, he smelled Irdak in the room. Felt his braided hair brushing against his own upper back. Felt the crude bonds, cargo straps by the feel of them, crushing his upper arms to his sides and lashing his wrists to… Irdak’s wrists. Behind his back. 

Without making a sound, Obi-Wan tapped a fingertip into Irdak’s palm. An answering twitch. _Good. He’s conscious._

They must have noticed the slight shift in his face - a moment later, Obi-Wan’s eyes flew open as he was hauled upright by a hand in his hair, struggling to gain his balance because someone had attached his Force collar to Irdak’s at the back of his neck, and being strapped to someone of Irdak’s willowy height meant he had to stand on tiptoes if he didn’t want to choke the boy or force him to keep his knees bent.

_An effective stress position, Sith damn it._

He tried his best to relax his muscles, fingers seeking and finding purchase in Irdak’s hand. He looked around, and found his suspicions confirmed: they were in some kind of industrial boiler room that could be anywhere in the city. What mattered was that it was evidently controlled by the mop-headed blond thug who had led the gang that captured him. He couldn’t see the entire room but suspected that the gang had relocated here in its entirety.

What was far more striking was the one remaining addition to the room’s personnel: an aquiline woman with a shock of wild silver hair and an expression of predatory greed and icy satisfaction. A look he would not forget, not even with almost twenty years between then and now, and not even with his head pounding and his ears ringing.

_Jenna Zan Arbor. I should have known._

“Irdak,” he whispered, “meet your maker.”

Irdak’s response, if there was one, was drowned by the booming voice of the gang leader who had risen to his feet and was now slowly pacing the room, blaster at his side, predatory grin on his face.

“So, lady. You were saying twenty-eight thousand, right? Hand them over.”

“That was not what we agreed.” Zan Arbor appeared miffed more than angered, her disdain for the gang and its leader abundantly evident in her voice. “You’ve already received half up front.”

“I have no recollection of that,” the blond thug replied with a dirty grin on his face. “Besides, I’m gonna need stitches because of Mister Feisty Pleasure Boy here,” he gestured with his blaster at Obi-Wan, and it was all Obi-Wan could do not to blush, “so that’s extra.”

“You can’t just change the rules on a deal!”

“I don’t see why not. It’s not like you can just call City Security on us exactly. They wouldn’t be too happy to send you on your way with those two pretty naked boys safely tucked away in your care.” He took a moment to leer at Obi-Wan, who felt acutely pink trying to keep his balance next to so much Irdak.

“And from where I’m standing,” the man continued, “all I see on your side of the table is one small sidearm, and you’re not even holding it in your hand, lady.”

One of the other roughnecks - Murrik, if Obi-Wan remembered correctly - took that opportunity to heft his considerably larger weapon into full view of Zan Arbor, lest she even consider taking her own blaster in hand.

“So,” the leader continued, “the price just went up. And it’s gonna keep going up the longer you keep us here.”

“You don’t even know what you’re dealing with here.” The quaver in Zan Arbor’s voice was barely disguised.

“The beauty of it is, we don’t need to. You told us everything we need to know, which is that you want these lads alive, and you don’t want them using the Force. So, failing an agreement, it’d be devastatingly easy for us to just cut our losses and leave these two pretty boys dead at your feet. Right lads?”

Murmured assent from the room at large.

“So… Thirty-five thousand, was it?” He smirked darkly in the direction of Zan Arbor, then slowly holstered his blaster and picked up an empty garbage bag lying on the floor. “Just say the word. Because these two boys will need to save their breath.”

With a terrifyingly practiced move, he shook the bag open and pulled it over his captives’ heads, twisting it tight around where their necks were shackled together by the Force collars.

Obi-Wan felt the thin clingy material slamming into his face with each breath and forced himself to calm his breathing. It would only go so far, and he couldn’t, didn’t want to imagine what Irdak was going through, without the Force or Obi-Wan’s long-ingrained ability to control his body.

“Irdak.” He couldn’t find anything else to say. _No breath for words._

The room beyond the clingy black bag was silent as if in anticipation, his own breathing echoing loud in his ears. Irdak’s breathing, too close, was even louder, faster than his, then shallower, shorter, struggling, fading. He felt Irdak stretching upward as if reaching for higher ground, gasping for breath. Losing his footing. Any moment now, he would go under and fall and take Obi-Wan with him.

“Forty-two,” he heard the same raspy voice say. Panic rose in his veins, the inevitable reaction to the lack of oxygen in his blood. Every time he drew breath, every time he sucked in air around the clinging black film covering his wide-open mouth, the panic rose, the noise in his head got louder, the need to draw in more air got overwhelming until there was none left.

_Our last breath. Shared. This cannot be._

With the last of his strength and a resolve that he knew would leave bruises, he sucked in as much of the bag as he could, then bit down and threw himself forward, letting himself fall to the floor, Irdak tumbling after him, a dead weight against his back. 

A dirty tearing sound gave way to grayish light and the sweet blessed taste of air.

_Thank the Four Mothers for your horns, you horny bastard._

“Feisty.” The gang leader turned around slowly to survey the pile of naked bound humanity on the floor. “I’m beginning to see why you want these. And I’m willing to stall at forty-two for slightly damaged goods.” He took a step back, shifted his weight, and Obi-Wan heard a sickening wet sound behind him and felt a jolt as his boot connected with Irdak’s head. 

“There’s plenty of space on that pretty head that isn’t gonna destroy my boots with those horns,” he growled, “so if you wanna keep him pretty I suggest you pony up.”

Jenna Zan Arbor remained silent, and that turned out to be the one thing that unnerved the gang leader. Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the heavy boots step away.

“You know what? Fuck you and your precious cargo. We can save you the trouble and end this right now. Guys, let’s cut our losses and get outta here. We got paid for one, so let’s leave her with one.”

Then, everything happened at once.

The window high above them shattered with the impact of a small hovering droid that barrelled in and started making an ear-shattering amount of noise. The door slammed to the floor, broken down by another set of rude bodies with armor and blasters, except this time they were yelling “City Security! Stand down or suffer the consequences!”, and the melee that erupted was surprisingly short and ended with one of the thugs surgically cut down by a Security blaster bolt and the others freezing, evidently preferring arrest over death.

All of this, Obi-Wan registered only dimly over the raging din in the room and in his head. The last thing he had felt before all hell had broken loose had been the sudden shock of Irdak’s body curling in on itself, jerking Obi-Wan backwards and pulling on the collar around his already sore neck.

In the last second of silence before the room drowned in a sea of noise, Obi-Wan had heard the knife clatter to the ground.

Now, craning his neck desperately in the only direction that mattered, he saw the knife, the thin sheen of blood on its long blade, and the blackish droplets leading from its tip towards Irdak’s still body.

The rushing in his ears easily drowned out the noises of confrontation, arrest, and general law enforcement posturing, and he tried his best to keep his eyes fixed on the broken window and the whirring, screaming droid because the alternative might just break his heart. Again.

When a familiar pair of boots clambered through the window and landed in front of Obi-Wan with a thud, it took him a dazed second to realize what was happening.

“Hold still, Master. Sorry, I’m gonna have to use a metal blade - there we are.”

The sight of Anakin Skywalker of all people, droid remote in one hand and a dagger still dripping with Irdak’s blood in the other, made no more sense on the third blink than it had on the first. 

Thankfully, Obi-Wan appeared to have trained his Padawan well in the art of keeping his act together because the next thing Anakin did after separating Obi-Wan’s collar from Irdak’s and giving him room to breathe to was turn off the unholy noise, say something clipped into his comm unit that contained the word ‘Jax’ in it somewhere, and then turn to the City Security team currently busy securing the scene and bundling four thugs and one mad scientist and wanted fugitive into their armored transport.

“We could do with urgent medical here. I’ve got Temple comm med on alert but… they could be a while.” For a moment, Anakin looked impossibly young, the burden of responsibility falling off his shoulders as the head of the Security team nodded agreement and barked something into his radio.

“I’ll find the key for these collars, Master. Don’t move.”

“How-” A coughing fit racked Obi-Wan’s chest, and he was forcibly reminded that he had not used his voice in a while, and barely managed to survive with his throat intact. And that there was a very heavy weight still strapped to his limbs. The bands constricting his chest were _very_ real, but he doubted cutting them would make it any easier to breathe.

_Irdak._

He stamped down brutally on the raw nerve of pain inside him, knew instinctively that with the Force at his disposal, it would only be worse, the midichlorians in his blood screaming for their counterparts which were currently dripping onto the concrete floor.

“How did you find me?” he managed weakly. “Cut me free?”

Anakin nodded, lips a thin line, the blood-stained dagger sawing at the straps. “Transmitter in your boots. Can’t have you sneaking about at night with _that_ much of a Force aura. You were a kriffing beacon, Master. And… I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you _tracked_ me.” The dagger was woefully inadequate at sawing through the cargo straps, but Obi-Wan was not willing to risk Anakin using his lightsaber.

“I incorporated you into our current project,” Anakin hedged. “The plan was to get some nice footage of Master Kenobi going clubbing…” He sighed, shook his head. “I’m glad we did it anyway.”

Obi-Wan nodded, closing his eyes slowly. “Thank you. I expect you’ll have lots of questions, Padawan.”

“About this human, well, humanoid Force beacon strapped to your back? You bet. But it can wait.” With a jolt, the cargo strap gave way, and for all that his wrists were still attached to Irdak’s, Obi-Wan twisted around until he could see, hands reaching out blindly for that familiar chest, the blank spot in his tattoos where the heart was. 

It was no longer blank, cut open by a thin red stab wound from which almost no blood had emerged. 

_All the bleeding must have been internal,_ his mind supplied, _heart desperately pumping his life into his chest cavity_ , and he was halfway to reaching out with the Force when he realized he still had the collar on, was still naked, in some boiler room in some strange place, on the floor curled over the pierced chest of his beloved, again. 

_Again._ His own heart felt like it had been stabbed, and left to bleed dry.

Then his hand, splayed desperately across Irdak’s pale chest, trailing after it the man’s own hand, limp and still attached to his at the wrist, registered an almost imperceptible rising and falling of breath. And most amazingly of all, a soft, sluggish heartbeat.

Which was not where it was supposed to be.

His hand trembling, Obi-Wan pressed it tighter against Irdak’s flesh. _Definitely a heartbeat._ He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes until he opened them, tears dotting the tattoos on Irdak’s chest, and confirmed what his hand had told him. The heartbeat was not coming from where the tattoos had been spared. 

Eyes and mouth wide open, he trailed his hand around the perimeter of the empty skin on Irdak’s chest. 

And encountered a second heartbeat on the other side.

_Bless the Four Mothers._


	6. Trajectory

**A Day Later**

“Just Irdak?” Healer Che quirked an eyebrow at her latest patient.

“That’s all that this one saw fit to give me for a name.” Irdak nodded sideways at Obi-Wan, who was currently stretched out on the bed across from his at the Healers’ Ward. “I don’t think ‘Incredible Irdak’ counts as a legal name on this planet, so… that’s all I’m afraid.”

“Make that Insufferable Irdak.” Obi-Wan grinned, and for all that that made his head hurt, it felt good to say these words, to say them to a conscious and alive Irdak, and to feel his echo in the Force. _Impossible, irrepressible, inescapable. Intimate._

“Hm.” Vokara Che made a note on her datapad. “I suppose we can erase the ‘Jinn Doe’ denomination, then. Although… say that name again?”

“Irdak?” he hazarded, his voice quiet and warm and feeding right into Obi-Wan’s bloodstream.

“No,” Healer Che sighed. “Say, ‘incredible’.”

“Incredible - oww!!”

Obi-Wan’s head whipped around just in time to see Irdak arching off the bed with a scream, clutching his face. Obi-Wan’s own face ached in sympathy while Healer Che made an exasperated note in her file.

“Sorry about that. Can’t believe they missed the broken nose in triage. Your n’s were less than optimal, Mister Irdak. Anyway, rest assured that now, you won’t spend the rest of your days looking like a prize fighter.”

Irdak groaned softly, letting his hand fall back on the sheets and breathing through his mouth. “Do you have any good drugs that would make me forget the noise that that just made in my head?” he asked weakly.

“You’ll live,” she replied evenly. “In other news, the stab wound may have missed your hearts, Irdak, but they still managed to puncture a lung so you will have to be on bed rest for a couple of days. And Master Kenobi, I can trust you to not disturb your… partner’s convalescence once that hairline fracture in your thick skull has healed, right?”

Obi-Wan beamed like an idiot, headache or no.

“Otherwise I may have to use the _unpleasant_ kind of restraints on you.” Healer Che continued, unperturbed. “As you well know, Force collars are a thing in this ward, and I assure you there’s more where that came from so don’t test my patience, patients. Also, may I remind you, Master Kenobi, that you still owe me dinner over this one.”

With that, she stalked out, certain she had made enough of an impression.

Within moments, Irdak was happily purring, enveloped in a full-body hug; just as the Healer ordered, Obi-Wan stayed on his bed, eyes closed, breathing in the faint scent of his beloved across the room.

After all, nobody had said anything about not using the Force.

***

**A Week Later**

The first time Irdak wore a full set of Jedi robes requisitioned from Stores (Obi-Wan’s being woefully short on his tall frame), he managed almost five minutes before erupting in a diatribe about ‘far too many clothes’, followed by a hilariously overacted striptease that left Obi-Wan shaking with laughter and throbbing with desire all at the same time.

It felt fantastic.

Pending reassignment of new quarters, Irdak had parked himself in Obi-Wan’s bedroom, proceeded to hog all the sheets, overheat several times a night, and then plaster his hot sweaty naked self against Obi-Wan, waking him up, then apologize with murmured words and touches until Obi-Wan fell asleep again.

They found out after two nights that Obi-Wan’s pillows were decidedly not designed to withstand the energetic sleep patterns of a part-Zabrak, and had to make a contrite trip to Knight Vaurt’s basement empire to requisition custom ones. 

Clothing-wise, they’d compromised, settling on pants and an undertunic plus sash, because Irdak hated the customary wide sleeves with a passion, arguing rightly that they’d only get in the way of his work. He also refused to wear shoes wherever permissible, and no amount of appreciative comments from Obi-Wan about how flattering those elegant knee-high brown boots looked on his long legs could persuade him to wear them for anything other than work or similar public appearances.

The small scar across his nose had faded already, and these days, Obi-Wan was the only one who was still able to tell that it had been broken. He sought out the little bump in the bone regularly, running a gentle fingertip down the length of Irdak’s nose, only to have his fingertip captured by a pair of very insistent lips.

_Insufferable._

***

**A Year Later**

It had taken a thinly veiled threat from the Kenobi/Skywalker team, but the Council had seen sense eventually. It was not worth losing the galaxy’s premier negotiator and the child of the Force itself over a technicality. Besides, a detailed midichlorian count had revealed conclusively that not only did Irdak Still-No-Last-Name more than pass muster for inclusion in any of the Order’s organizations, his symbionts (or “little Force bugs” as he himself was wont to call them) displayed an uncanny attraction towards Master Kenobi’s.

Which, given that he was a partial genetic copy of Kenobi’s Master and lover, made some amount of sense - but it had still taken the galaxy’s prime negotiator resorting to blunt threats to ensure that said midichlorians stayed within the purview of the Temple.

Irdak had found himself assigned to the Temple’s Engineering Corps, specifically the client relations division on account of his sociable demeanor, which Obi-Wan summed up as ‘flirting with anything that’s not actively a droid’, and he had quickly learned some uses for his impressive untrained Force potential. He enjoyed making friends and repairing malfunctioning machinery, and soaking up the general atmosphere of the bustling basement levels of the Temple with its myriad life forms working for the greater good, or, ‘feeding the little Force bugs’ as he tended to call it.

The special connection between the striking new arrival and Master Kenobi had quickly graduated from Temple gossip to cherished common knowledge; not that a Temple full of Force-sensitives could in any way overlook the bright glow that expanded around them every time they were as much as close to each other.

“Get a shielded room, you freaks,” had become Anakin’s standard commentary, but for all that he was trying his hardest to preserve his teenage Padawan credibility in the face of so much sappy adult subject matter, he had accepted Irdak as something of an older brother and was enjoying teaching him the less orthodox applications of droid mechanics and programming.

In their spare time, they had used Anakin’s expansive scrap collection to devise a tattooing droid, and Irdak had begun to work towards completing his collection, the pale undecorated half of his body slowly turning into a record of his new life. Somewhere in the labyrinth of rosewood and brown were the symbols for his name and Obi-Wan’s, in a script he had devised himself.

When he had presented Obi-Wan with a design for a matching anklet tattoo on the anniversary of their first meeting, Obi-Wan had wept throughout the procedure, and it had not been from the pain of having a buzzing droid, under the guidance of Irdak’s gentle hands, inscribing ink under his skin one pinprick at a time.

Of course, they _did_ get a shielded room on a regular basis, especially on those occasions when Obi-Wan’s responsibilities as a warrior-diplomat had kept them apart for extended periods of time. On those nights, Irdak positively bursting with contained sexual energy, they would go at it for hours, and Temple gossip had it that Healer Che held a bed for them just in case they overdid it.

On one of those nights, just before orgasming for the second time that night, his senses filled with the scents and sounds and sensations of Irdak, his Force aura singing with the magic of Irdak’s impossible existence and his single-minded focus on Obi-Wan’s pleasure, Obi-Wan distinctly heard a voice calling his name.

“Did you say something… just then?!”

And Irdak swore up and down he hadn’t said a thing. 

“Obi-Wan. I was way beyond words. Which… your fault, Master Jedi.” A playful poke to Obi-Wan’s ribs, then Irdak’s hand stilled.

“I _heard_ something, though…” he continued quietly, as if remembering something from long ago. “It… sounded like your name?”

“Yes. Yes it did.”

And Obi-Wan crushed Irdak to his chest in an all-encompassing hug, and when Irdak finally came up for air, his Force aura glowed with with a touch more blue, a few more laugh lines, a little more silver, and his horns utterly tangled in Obi-Wan’s outgrown hair.

“You’ll have enough for a proper swordsman’s tail soon,” he observed gently as he picked the reddish-blond strands off his horns.

“Yes.”

And the voice that had said that wasn’t all Obi-Wan’s either.

_Irdak. The place where things come together. You couldn’t have picked a better name, Padawan._

\--- end---


End file.
